Vandalizing Bookstores and Censoring Books in the Name of Darwin

Just in time for Academic Freedom Day, Feb. 12 (aka Darwin Day), graduate student Michael Barton at Montana State University boasts of regularly going into his local bookstore and purging books critical of Darwin from the science section of the store and reshelving them in the religion section. This past Sunday Barton posted a report about his most recent act of vandalism:

Today I moved [Michael Behe's] The Edge of Evolution and [Benjamin Wiker's] The Darwin Myth away from the shelve directly under where copies of Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth were, and placed them next to--I just had to--the Adventure Bible and the Princess Bible in the religion section.

Whatever Barton claims, his actions constitute censorship, pure and simple. Barton is trying to hide books he doesn't like in order to prevent others from being exposed to views with which he disagrees. Indeed, he is apparently so insecure about the ability of Darwinists like Dawkins to make their case that he thinks he has the duty to vandalize private bookstores in order to keep the books of Darwin's critics away from the public. Barton's activities are not only juvenile, they may well be illegal.

Censors like Barton aren't doing Darwinian evolution any favors. They merely prove to the public just how bigoted and intolerant the Darwinist establishment has become. Much like certain global warming fanatics, Darwinist ideologues increasingly place themselves above the law and try to exempt themselves of any sort of real accountability.

Ironically, Darwin himself was a lot more fair-minded than his latter-day defenders. Writing at the beginning of On the Origin of Species, Darwin acknowledged that "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."